Immigrants fired from Trump clubs seek White House meeting

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump, disembark Air Force One upon arrival at Morristown Municipal Airport, in Morristown, N.J., Friday, July 5, 2019. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

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NEW YORK (AP) — A group of immigrant workers fired from President Donald Trump’s golf clubs say they want to meet with him at the White House to make the case that they should not be deported.

The 21 maids, groundskeepers and other workers fired earlier this year from five of Trump’s clubs asked their former employer in a letter this week to remember all their hard work and give them a chance to make their case in person why they should stay in the country.

“I’m hopeful that he’ll look at the letter. I believe he has a heart,” said Gabriel Sedano, who worked for 14 years as a handyman at Trump’s club in Westchester County, New York, before he was fired in January.

The response on White House stationery Wednesday, in what appeared to be a form letter, assured the workers that “we are reviewing your message.” The White House didn’t respond Friday to a request for further comment.

The troubles for Trump workers started in December when a maid who had made the president’s bed at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey, told The New York Times that a supervisor there knew she and other housekeepers and workers were in the country illegally, and used their status against them if they complained about working conditions.

Then other workers at other Trump clubs without proper documents — some employed by him for a decade or more — began speaking out, and the Trump Organization began rounds of firings.

The Trump Organization has said it does not tolerate workers who lie about their status and only recently discovered its workers were in the country illegally. It did not respond to requests for comment about the proposed White House meeting.

Democrats in Congress requested earlier this year that the FBI look into whether the Trump Organization acted as a “criminal enterprise” by knowingly hiring workers with false documents and even helping them procure such papers, as some fired workers have claimed.

A lawyer for 39 former Trump workers, Anibal Romero, said he has been interviewed by the FBI as well as the offices of attorneys general in New Jersey and New York, though he declined to talk about what was discussed.

The letter from the workers said the president knows many of them and asked him to “do the right thing” and “not deport us and our friends and family.”

“You know we are hard workers and that we are not criminals or seeking a free ride in America,” the letter said. “We all pay our taxes, love our faith and our family, and simply want to find a place for ourselves to make America even better.”

Former club handyman Sedano said he couldn’t believe it when he was fired in January because he was a trusted employee who was asked to do work on Eric Trump’s house nearby, and given access to come and go as he pleased.

“I had keys to the house, all the codes. I knew him personally,” said Sedano, who has three children in the U.S., the youngest 8. He added: “I was the first one fired. There was a list. I was the first one.”

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